Offaly – Irish in the American Civil Warhttps://irishamericancivilwar.com
Exploring Irish Emigration in the 19th Century United StatesWed, 23 May 2018 20:14:52 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.6https://irishamericancivilwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cropped-Family-90x90.jpgOffaly – Irish in the American Civil Warhttps://irishamericancivilwar.com
3232133117992Speaking Ill Of The Dead: Eulogies & Enmity For An Irish Brigade Soldierhttps://irishamericancivilwar.com/2015/03/22/speaking-ill-of-the-dead-eulogies-enmity-for-an-irish-brigade-soldier/
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:13:58 +0000https://irishamericancivilwar.com/?p=7841On 18th October 1862 the New York Irish-American published an article on the ‘gallant fellows’ of the Irish Brigade who had recently given their lives at the carnage of Antietam. One of them was Tullamore native Lieutenant John Conway, who had fallen in the ranks of the 69th New York Infantry. The paper described Conway...

]]>On 18th October 1862 the New York Irish-American published an article on the ‘gallant fellows’ of the Irish Brigade who had recently given their lives at the carnage of Antietam. One of them was Tullamore native Lieutenant John Conway, who had fallen in the ranks of the 69th New York Infantry. The paper described Conway as a ‘noble’man, whose memory should be cherished. Remembering the dead of the American Civil War in such heroic terms is something that we still do today. However, it is occasionally worth reminding ourselves that these were flesh and blood people, with their own flaws and foibles. Just as they were loved by some, they could be disliked by others. Less than two weeks before the Irish-American’s eulogy, John Conway’s brother-in-law, Charles Brady, had written to his sister regarding the soldier’s death. Unlike the newspaper, Charles did not seem particularly sorry to hear of John’s passing. (1)

Antietam Battlefield. The Confederates held the Sunken Lane to the left of the image, with the Irish Brigade advancing from right to left across the field. It was in the vicinity of this field that John Conway died (Damian Shiels)

John Conway had emigrated to the United States from Tullamore, Co. Offaly around the year 1840. On 7th January 1846 he had been married to Catherine Brady in Auburn, New York, by Father O’Flaherty. The couple, who had no children, appear to have tried their hand at farming before heading to Brooklyn. There they entered the employment of Henry C. Bowen, a successful New York merchant. Bowen was the Internal Revenue Collector for the Third District (Brooklyn), but was also a prominent abolitionist. He had founded The Independent in 1848, a congregational antislavery weekly that at one point was edited by Henry Ward Beecher. John worked as Henry Bowen’s gardener while Catherine served the family as a nurse. The Offaly man was around 36 years old when he became a Lieutenant in Company K of the 69th New York in 1861. At the time he was described as 5 feet 10 inches in height, with a dark complexion, dark eyes and black hair. 34-year-old Catherine was still in the Bowen’s employ when she learned that the Battle of Antietam had made her a widow. (2)

John Conway’s body was brought back from Maryland together with that of Patrick Clooney, one of the most famed officers in the Brigade’s history. Their remains were ‘conveyed in handsome metallic coffins’, and taken to the headquarters of the Brigade at 596 Broadway where they were laid in state. John Conway had clearly been a good soldier. The Irish-American reported that he had:

‘served with distinction and honor on every battle-field to the hour of his death; when, like many of his brave companions, he was struck down, on the 17th of September, at Antietam, leading his command to the charge. Courteous, affable, loving and truly brave- he was as much beloved in social life by all who knew him, as in camp by his fellow-officers, who esteemed him as a “noble fellow,” and mourn him to-day as an irreparable loss. Aged but thirty-six years, his young life is another sacrifice of Ireland for America, in the annals of which, as a staunch and trusty soldier, the name of John Conway should be cherished.’ (3)

Henry C. Bowen’s newspaper ‘The Independent’, as it appeared in 1919 (Wikipedia)

Catherine Conway was living with the Bowens at 76 Willow Street in Brooklyn in 1862. She needed to prove her marriage to John in order to become eligible for a pension, so she asked her brother, Charles Brady, to travel to Auburn to see if he could get evidence of the marriage. Charles was a farmer living in Skaneateles, Onondaga County. When he wrote back, Charles took the opportunity to offer his own form of consolation to his sister. His letter makes it clear that John’s ‘bad actions’ had severely damaged Charles’s opinion of him. Charles did not even feel it was worth Catherine trying to get John’s body home, although as reported by the Irish-American this is something that would subsequently take place.Charles also made sure to tell his sister to avoid the ‘low Irish’ who might lead her astray, and encouraged her to stay living with the Bowens:

Dear Sister

I received your letter the third. We were very sorry to hear of John deaths [sic.], I don’t blame you to feel bad but still he was so cruel to you, but I suppose nature comples [compels] you to feel so. Dear Sister I don’t think he ever used you like a husband when you lived up on the lake [presumably Lake Skaneateles] on the farm, you know when you had to go out and milk all the cows and he would be away playing cards, and since yous went east by all accounts he was but worse and after he went away Mother wrote to me and told me that he never left you a dollar after selling all his things. When he was up here he had plenty of money spending around the taverns and was out at Auburn at two Irish dances but I will forgive him and I hope God will for all his bad actions. Dear Sister there had been many a good husband left their wives and children which falls on the field of battle and their family’s must feel reconcilise [reconciled] now. Dear Sister you have know [sic.] trouble but yourself and as the Almighty gives you health you aught to be well satisfied and also you aught to feel happy to think you are living with such kind folks that takes so much interest in you. Dear Sister now I am going to give you advice to keep away from all the low Irish and not be led away by them, you may think they are for your good they will bring you to ruin. Dear Sister I hope you will remain with the family you are living with and be said by then the advice you get from them will be for your good. Dear Sister I went out to Auburn yesterday to see about your marriage lines the priest that is there now his name is Mr Creaton [?] he is the third priest since you were married. This priest can’t find the record that priest had that married you, that shows how correct they are about keeping the record. This priest says as long as yous lived man and wife for so many years and there is plenty of witnesses for that. Dear Sister if you will live with this family my wife or myself will go down to see you the latter part of the winter for I know you have got a good home with them. Dear Sister I think it is so foolish to think to get John [‘s] body home for they can’t tell one from the other after they are three days under the sand. Them that are advising you for that are doing you wrong you take advice from Mr Hodge and not from them, for he knows all about such business. If there is anything coming to you he will get it for you, if you get anything put in the bank for old age. Myself and family joins with me in sending their love to you. I have no more to say at present but remain your affectionate brother,

Charles Brady.

Skaneateles Oct the 5 1862. (4)

It transpired that the priest that had married John and Catherine, Father O’Flaherty, had returned to Ireland. However, statements from family members and Henry C. Bowen were enough to prove the marriage and secure Catherine’s pension. It would later be increased by special act. Catherine’s opinion of her husband goes unrecorded, but it likely sat somewhere between the glorified memorialisation exhibited by the Irish-American and the extremely low opinion of him held by her brother Charles. Catherine received a pension based on John’s service until her own death in 1905. She was buried with her fallen husband at St. Patrick’s Cemetery, in Aurora, New York. (5)

Report to the Senate supporting an increase in Catherine Conway’s pension (Fold3/NARA)

*The letter above had little punctuation in its original form. Punctuation has been added in this post for ease of modern reading- if you would like to see the original transcription please contact me. None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

]]>7841Sole Support: An Offaly Mother's Efforts to Keep Her Son, 1861https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2014/10/27/sole-support-an-offaly-mothers-efforts-to-keep-her-son-1861/
Mon, 27 Oct 2014 18:43:14 +0000https://irishamericancivilwar.com/?p=7348In August 1861, Orderly Sergeant John Kennedy of the 10th Ohio Infantry wrote a letter home to his mother from western Virginia. Although now a soldier, the 22-year-old from Dunkerrin, Co. Offaly* had been in the army for barely three months. Just weeks before had been learning the tobacconist trade, which he plied in Cincinnati’s 13th Ward. Now, that...

]]>In August 1861, Orderly Sergeant John Kennedy of the 10th Ohio Infantry wrote a letter home to his mother from western Virginia. Although now a soldier, the 22-year-old from Dunkerrin, Co. Offaly* had been in the army for barely three months. Just weeks before had been learning the tobacconist trade, which he plied in Cincinnati’s 13th Ward. Now, that August, John was keen to calm his mother’s fears- he was her sole family and support, and she was terrified as to what might become of them both in the months and years to come. (1)

John’s mother Catharine Talbot had married Robert Kennedy in Dunkerrin Catholic Church, Co. Offaly on 30th January 1837. John had been born around 1839, and spent his childhood year’s in Ireland. The catalyst for emigration had been the death of John’s father Robert, who passed away around 1850. Catharine decided that the best prospects for her and her son lay in the United States, where they ultimately settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. When they arrived, they entered a community that contained a number of people from Dunkerrin- years later another Cincinnati resident, Thomas Irwin, recalled how he had attended Robert Kennedy’s wake in the Co. Offaly village. (2)

John had initially joined the army for three-months, in May 1861, but like most of his comrades he converted his enlistment to a three-year term in the 10th Ohio on 3rd June. Catharine was not pleased. Ill health meant that John was her only means of support, and she depended on him for everything from her rent to groceries. No doubt she was also terrified of losing the only close family she had left. Catharine decided to take desperate measures, so before the regiment left its Cincinnati base- Camp Dennison, Ohio- for the front, Catharine persuaded a few influential citizens to help her get her son out of the army. They set off to see John’s Captain, Stephen McGroarty (from Mount Charles, Co. Donegal, later a Brevet-Brigadier-General). Catharine asked McGroarty to discharge her son, on the basis that he was her sole support. One can imagine the whole affair was somewhat embarrassing for John, who had only just been promoted to Sergeant for good behaviour. In front of his commander, John now had to face off against his mother. He told her that he was ‘anxious to go with the regiment’ and reassured Catharine that ‘he would send her his money, and that it would be all the same to her’ adding that ‘when he came back from the army, they would have a nice little farm.’ This was apparently a reference to 100 acres of land that the men had been promised for enlisting. Captain McGroarty also informed Catharine that there was now no turning back for John- he was enlisted, and was compelled to go with the regiment. (3)

Camp Dennison, where Catharine Kennedy made a desperate effort to keep her son at home in 1861 (Wikipedia)

This was the backdrop to John’s 11th August letter. By this date the regiment remains unpaid, but John reassures Catharine that the money is sure to come eventually. He is also keen to stress that he has not been in any real danger so far. The 10th Ohio had yet to be engaged in any major combat- in August 1861, such horrors still lay in the future.

Buckhannon Aug 11th 1861

Dear Mother

i take the plesure of writing you these few lines hoping the may find you in as good health as this leaves me at present thank God. We have just got back from a long march through the Country sometimes marching all night. We are getting along very well now we may stop here for some time. there was six of our men shot coming through Bulltown on the 9th of aug we were there the day before the[y] arived there you see the Regiment is devided in three parts four Companys with Col Lytle four with Col Karff [Korff] and two with Major Burk [Burke] we are with Col Lytle. we may be at the Battle of Manassas Gap but i dont think we will however i know that we will have plenty of fighting for i supose it will take us some time to drive them out of Virginia. Perhaps i may get a furla [furlough] soon and go home for a week or two but i dont know how soon i may get it mother. i dont know what is the reason the [they] dont pay of [off] but one thing i do know that it is as shure as daylight and if you can get along for a short time it will be all wright. John Keller is going home tomorrow and i sen [send] this by him to you so he can let you know how i am. we have just as good a time here as if we were at home only the danger of being on gaurd at night as for me i dont have to go on any gaurd duty i have a very good time here of cource i have charge of a Company and sometimes i have a little trouble but it is not mutch. i wrote a great many letters since i arived here and never got but two answered. Patrick Hennessy and Hamilton Keown are well and sends their respects to all the folks at home the [they] wish their freinds would write to them a little more than the [they] do. i will let you know that my pay is raised five dolars more in the month. tell Mrs Ryan that i was asking for her and Mrs Kilfoil also Mrs Comings and all the folks. when John Keller is coming back i wish you would send that white pants with him i want it those hot days.

No more at present

from your son

John Kennedy

Orderly Sergeant

Company E 10th Regt

O.V.M.** (4)

Less than a month after John wrote this letter, on 10th September 1861, the 10th Ohio experienced battle for the first time. They ‘saw the elephant’ at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).*** Against a fortified enemy, Captain Stephen McGroarty led his Company E forward to the attack. They were met with a withering fire- when it was finally over ten of the regiment lay dead, fifty wounded. Just how much John Kennedy ever knew of his first taste of action is unclear; McGroarty remembered seeing the young Offaly man fall, shot through the head. Back in Cincinnati, John’s mother’s worst fears became a reality. News of her son’s death reached her before any of the army money ever did. With her rent unpaid, and reliant on relief committees for support, all that was left to her was to seek her son’s bounty and back pay, and apply for a dependent mother’s pension. (5)

The Patteson House, Carnifex Ferry, near where John Kennedy and the 10th Ohio attacked (Brian M. Powell via Wikipedia)

**Punctuation has been added to this letter for ease of modern reading- only limited puntuation appears in the original. Of the soldiers John mentions in his letter, John Keller and Patrick Hennessy survived to muster out on 17th June 1864. Hamilton Keown was transferred to Company A later in 1861, and was killed in action at the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky on 8th October 1862.

***You can read more about the 10th Ohio at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry here.

****None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

]]>7348From Cappincur to Corinth, and Back: An Irish Artilleryman Comes Homehttps://irishamericancivilwar.com/2012/12/11/from-cappincur-to-corinth-and-back-an-irish-artilleryman-comes-home/
https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2012/12/11/from-cappincur-to-corinth-and-back-an-irish-artilleryman-comes-home/#commentsTue, 11 Dec 2012 20:08:40 +0000https://irishamericancivilwar.com/?p=4836The photograph below shows Battery M of the 1st Missouri Light Artillery during Sherman’s Meridian Campaign of February 1864. One of the men in this image is Sergeant Peter Cavanagh, from near Tullamore in Co. Offaly. Peter had a remarkable career; not only did he serve through some of the toughest campaigns of the Western...

]]>The photograph below shows Battery M of the 1st Missouri Light Artillery during Sherman’s Meridian Campaign of February 1864. One of the men in this image is Sergeant Peter Cavanagh, from near Tullamore in Co. Offaly. Peter had a remarkable career; not only did he serve through some of the toughest campaigns of the Western Theater, but highly unusually he also managed to return to Ireland after the war. As a result his Great-Grandson Michael MacNamara was born in Ireland rather than the United States, and is one of the few descendants of Irish American Civil War soldiers who travels west rather than east across the Atlantic when exploring his ancestor’s past.

Battery M of the 1st Missouri Light Artillery during the 1864 Meridian Campaign (Photographic History of the Civil War)

The average visitor to the small rural cemetery of Cappincur, 2km outside of Tullamore in Co. Offaly, is unlikely to notice the unassuming headstone of the Cavanagh family. The inscription commemorates three of its members, and reads as follows:

This epitaph belies Peter Cavanagh’s extraordinary journey, which took him from Offaly to the United States and back again. Peter’s Great-Grandson Michael has painstakingly pieced together his ancestor’s life. Born in 1824, the family still posess Peter’s exercise book from his time in an Offaly Hedge School between 1844 and 1848. At some point after this he decided to try his luck in America. His port of embarkation was most likely Cork, as that county is erroneously listed as his birthplace on his enlistment papers.

Peter next appears in 1860, when he took the fateful step of joining the regular army on the eve of the American Civil War. His place of enlistment was given as Newport, Kentucky, where he joined Battery F of the 2nd U.S. Light Artillery. He was one of a group of soldiers transferred to the Missouri Union forces following the Confederate victory at Wilson’s Creek in 1861, with the new unit becoming Battery M of the 1st Missouri Light Artillery. It was with the 1st Missouri Light that Peter would serve for much of the war, travelling all over the South. Just prior to the Battle of Atlanta in 1864, Peter, now a Sergeant, petitioned along with a number of his regular comrades to be transferred back to the 2nd U.S. Light Artillery, a request which was granted. He remained in the military after the Confederate surrender, seeing service on the west coast at Fort Point in San Francisco and in Fort Vancouver in Washington, from where he returned to Ireland in July 1867.

The petition signed by Peter and his comrades in 1864 requesting a return to the regular service (Michael MacNamara)

Why did Peter choose to return home? Michael’s research has discovered that the Irishman fell ill with ‘miasmatic fever’ in 1863, contracted while on campaign in Mississippi. He recovered aboard the hospital ship Woodford, but it seems likely that he was sickly from this point forward. Apart from failing health Peter had at least one more pressing engagement at home in Ireland- having departed the United States in July of 1867 he was married to Offaly girl Margaret Tiernan that September. The marriage to Margaret may well have been the driving force behind his decision to return to his native land.

Peter and Margaret were not destined to enjoy their life together for long; Peter died of tuberculosis on 10th March 1871, to be followed to the grave only eight months later by his mother. Margaret long outlived her husband, claiming a pension for her husband’s military service which she received until her own death nearly sixty years later, in 1930. Peter Cavanagh brought home to rural Offaly memories of some of the hardest fighting of the American Civil War. His discharge prior to his 1864 re-enlistment in the 2nd U.S. Light noted the staggering array of engagements he had participated in up to that point:

Peter’s 1864 discharge paper, charting the impressive list of actions he had been in engaged in up to that point (Michael MacNamara)

Peter served through the remainder of the Atlanta Campaign, and later fought with the ‘Rock of Chickamauga’, General George Thomas, in Tennessee. His last major battle of the war was fought at Nashville in December 1864, when he and his comrades destroyed the Confederate Army of Tennessee. It seems incongruous that someone who had survived so much hardship would enjoy such a short life back at home in Co. Offaly, but such was Peter’s lot. Thanks to the efforts of his Great-Great Grandson Michael MacNamara his remarkable service is remembered, as is his position as one of the very few Irish-born American Civil War soldiers who spent their final years in the land of their birth.

The Pension Certificate of Peter Cavanagh, claimed by his wife Margaret until her death in 1930 (Michael MacNamara)

*Many thanks to Michael MacNamara for providing both the images and the history that relates to the remarkable career of his Great-Grandfather. If anyone has any additional information that they think may add to Peter’s story Michael would be eager to hear from you.